Novalight
by Saiyurain
Summary: Towards the end in a blaze of fire. Revision of "Winged Darkness"
1. Prologue

**Novalight  
**_Written by: Saiyurain_

Disclaimer: I do not own Shaman King.  
Genre: Action/Adventure/Angst  
Rating: T  
Summary: Towards the end in a blaze of fire.  
Pairings: Hinted HaoxLyserg

Warnings: AU, language, violence, a slight bit of shonen-ai (if you squint)

A/N: Novalight is the revised story of "Winged Darkness".

Cries of fear penetrated the peaceful village late one night. A harsh, lonely cry echoed through the streets, crawling and scratching, sending shivers up the spines of the dead that lurked around. A loud, thunderous crash resounded, startling the few who remained unfazed by the cries. Fear rebounded again and again, spreading from one vile being to the next. Screams of insanity soon followed, bearing the brunt of the vicious whirlwind of confusion. Not soon after, a ghostly white filled the sky, blocking out the last bits of light that reached the scrambling village. Remnants of silver coated the air, exploding like a supernova of gas when contacted.

Fear, pain, and insanity followed.

From out of the red flames arose a majestic king. Self-crowned by the blood of all his victims, he stood upon a pile of their corpses, a maniacal grin plastered upon his face. With one gloved hand, he held the still dripping head of a child's body, clenched tightly underneath a large lego block symbol. Its eyes gaped upwards at him, seemingly screaming in silent agony even when dead.

With a quick snap of his fingers, a large red entity materialized beside him.

When he signalled to it, a torrent of flames burst forth from a black hole where its mouth should have been. The flames roared over the village, sweeping past the wooden houses and consuming them in a blazing inferno, creating even more chaos than its previous attack.

The smell of burned flesh permeated through the air. He took in a large breath of air, exhaling in pleasure at the scent.

"What do you think?" He addressed the red giant. "Doesn't this feast smell simply delicious?"

The giant gave a guttural roar in affirmation.

He smiled benignantly at the spirit before a sudden sharp prick flashed through the back of his mind.

'Ah… I see. So the fifth one has finally arrived, then.'

Licking his lips in anticipation, he signalled to the giant once more, this time jumping onto its back as it leaned down towards him.

'Well, we can't forget to give them a warm welcome. After all, the spirit of fire is supposed to belong to this last warrior, anyways.'

In the distance, a bright star descended from the heavens towards the earth – an illuminated trail of fire following in its wake. As it descended, the clouds parted, allowing it passage without hindrance to its magnificent beauty. With a resounding crash, it landed on the very edge of the horizon.

The world was silent for a moment as it received its final warrior – the hourglass of time having paused to savour the moment, casting a shaft of light upon the warrior's landing spot briefly in reverence before time resumed its course.

_The last one had arrived._

Tbc_  
_


	2. Chapter 1

**Novalight  
**_Written by: Saiyurain_

Disclaimer: I do not own Shaman King.  
Genre: Action/Adventure/Angst  
Rating: T  
Summary: Towards the end in a blaze of fire.  
Pairings: Hinted HaoxLyserg

Warnings: AU, language, violence, a slight bit of shonen-ai (if you squint)

A/N: I tried to picture what each character (considering their situations) would say in each scene, but I think that I've gotten some OOC lines anyways. Anyways, this chapter was finished a little bit earlier than planned since I got through my writer's block quicker than I had thought I would. Enjoy~ (hopefully, lol)

* * *

The air seemed to crackle around him with an unseen energy. When he flexed the wings protruding out of his back, static electricity jumped from one feather to another, making him cringe reflexively at the sharp pain.

He looked up at his mentor, Bron, trying to memorize everything that he could about him before he had to fall. Smiling sadly, Bron leaned down and reached out a heavy hand, setting it gently upon the top of his head. No more words could be exchanged that had not already been spoken, so he kept silent. Finally, Goldva spoke up.

"It is now time for you to fall. I wish you luck."

Bron withdrew his hand and allowed Zeruel to turn around, wings unfurled towards him. As he looked on, each feather slowly broke off from Zeruel's wings, turning black as soon as they lost contact with the angel's furyoku. Each feather was ingrained with a memory of his time in heaven, and as they fell, he slowly lost all the memories that he had of ever being here in the first place.

Before the last feather fell, the angel turned his head back around briefly. Giving his mentor one last shaky smile, he whispered the words, "Goodbye.", before the recognition faded out of his eyes and a blank look replaced it.

Beneath him, the clouds opened up and the world of the humans shone brightly below them.

Zeruel fell to the earth, a look of confusion and then absolute terror filling his face as he disappeared from sight, one hand stretched out pleadingly towards him.

A dull pang resounded within his heart, but he pushed it roughly aside, reminding it that this had to be done in order to save the world.

'Goodbye, Zeruel.'

The words had never made it out of his mouth and no tears had fallen with Zeruel. Bron's last acknowledgement was in the form of a regretful stare.

-_A beautiful star falls from the velvet darkness of heaven's gates._-

The last thing that he remembered was the sight of the ground rushing up to meet him, a flurry of white, and a sad pair of eyes gazing into his own. He shook his head, trying to clear his mind of the images. Apart from those memories, he could not seem to remember anything else about his past, let alone how he happened to fall from such a height towards the ground. One thing that he did remember, though, was his name – Lyserg. In fact, the name seemed to pulsate within his mind when he tried to drudge up his memories, as though asserting it was the singular most important thing.

He wondered where he was, though. Looking around, all that he could determine was that he was in the middle of a clearing of some sort within what seemed to be a forest, judging by the abundance of trees around him.

Suddenly, a chime sounded off to his left. He lifted himself onto his elbows in order to twist his body around towards the sound. Squinting, he could make out a small sparkle of light within the long fronds of grass. As he stared at it, it shifted slightly, enlarging. Another chime followed its movement.

"Hello?" He called out to it, hoping to draw it out of the grass.

At first, only silence answered him. Then, a series of chimes sounded off once again, the sparkle of light darting back and forth between the blades of grass until it shot out of its hiding spot straight at him. He flinched back at the anticipated attack, only to blink in puzzlement as a beautiful pink fairy emerged from the sparkle of light.

The fairy chimed a couple more times in apparent delight before taking off and flying gaily around him. Laughing at her antics, he introduced himself to her.

"Hello, my name's Lyserg. What's yours?"

She chimed in response.

"Morphine? That's a nice name. It suits you well."

At his comment, she flittered about even more delightedly than before, a small smile on her face.

"So where are you from, Morphine?"

She explained to him that she had woken up in a gold cage a long time ago with no recollection of anything and that, for many years, she had been stuck inside of that golden cage, unable to escape. One day, a young boy had discovered her cage and had been able to see her. Over the years, many people had discovered the golden cage, but each of them had dismissed the cage quickly when they found it broken. Not one of them had ever acknowledged her before, leaving her to her prison of solitude once more. At least, no one before that boy had ever seen her before. The boy – whose name was Yoh – upon discovering the cage had immediately looked straight at her and smiled.

Immediately, the boy had unlatched the lock that had kept her confined in that cage for all those years and held out a hand for her to take. Still smiling, he said the words, "It's alright now, Morphine. He'll be back for you soon."

Even though she had not understood what he meant or how he knew her name, she had held those words close to her heart ever since that day, awaiting the person that Yoh had mentioned to her. Now that she had met Lyserg, she felt what had been a gaping hole in her heart close up. That was one of the main reasons that she had been so happy when she had seen him and overjoyed later when he had understood her.

Lyserg was surprised at what she told him. According to this Yoh's words, could he be somehow connected to her in some way? If so, then shouldn't her presence spark something within his own heart as well? He pushed it aside, thinking that maybe the feeling wasn't so important and started to tell Morphine about the similarities concerning his own memory loss. She listened, enraptured by him, though he wasn't sure if it was due to his story or something else entirely.

Suddenly, blackness stole over him. On all sides, fire encroached – reaching out with hungry flames grasping at him. Intense pressure dropped from the sky and slammed his mind downwards to the pit of his stomach. He felt as if the world had suddenly fallen away beneath his feet and that now he wasv plunging towards a fiery hell.

The world seemed to turn upside down, inverting on itself before, finally, righting itself. Lyserg's head spun from the experience. His limbs tingled with a strange sensation from the aftermath of that. He dropped to the ground to rest on his hands and knees – his legs unable to support him with all their shaking. Swallowing through his suddenly parched throat, he turned his head around towards Morphine. He wondered if she had felt that as well.

To his shock, Morphine had fallen down to the ground unconscious. The effect on her must have been overwhelming. He hoped that she was alright.

He reached out a shaky hand to try and rouse her, but before he had even taken his weight off of one of his hands in order to do so, a voice suddenly spoke up from behind him.

"Oh? What's this? I guess I used too much furyoku just now."

He turned around sharply to glare at the intruder.

"Furyoku?" The context was the next thing to click into place. "Do you mean that you were the one that attacked us just now?"

"Now, now. No need to have such a harsh reaction. I was just testing you and your fairy. If I had truly wanted to attack you, I would have just crushed the two of you into the ground and left only your bodies behind."

The intruder's words, as well as the bright smile that had accompanied their words, left a deep chill within him.

"Who are you? And is Morphine going to be okay?"

"Morphine? That is the fairy, I assume. If she's not too weak, then she'll be fine. In fact, she should be better than she was before. After all, now she'll be able to sense my furyoku from quite a distance away, even if it's suppressed. As for who I am—"

Here the intruder paused and stepped forwards, outstretching one hand towards him.

"Asakura Hao – the future Shaman King."

The sudden shift and the man's – no, now that he looked closer, boy's – sudden proximity made him jerk backwards in surprise and confusion.

"What---?"

Hao's hand remained outstretched patiently.

Hesitantly, he got to his feet and reached out and grabbed on to it.

"Lyserg."

He tried to pull his hand away right after, but Hao held onto it tightly.

More than just a bit uneasy now, he asked, "What did you mean by 'future Shaman King'?"

"I'm going to be the one to defeat all the other shamans, of course. There should be no doubt about that."

"Shamans…?"

"Ah. I see." A bemused expression crossed over his face. "Very well, then. Let's start from the beginning, shall we?"

At this point, he launched into a long explanation of shamans and the Shaman King tournament that took place every 500 years. This year would fall on one of those special years, so shamans from all over the world were training and gathering together to determine who would become the next Shaman King. Whoever became the king had whatever wish they desired granted by the Great Spirit.

'The Shaman King…'

"I wish to make this place a better world – a world full of only shamans. Humans are contemptuous and pitiful in their greed-filled struggles, polluting the earth with their sins. When I become Shaman King, I will cleanse the world of all humans and allow the shamans to reign. From that point onwards, the earth will have been purified. Don't you believe that that is the best course of action?"

Hao pinned him with an intense, scrutinizing look after that question. It was a completely different look from the persona that he had been portraying earlier. It was as though Lyserg's fate would ride on the answer that he gave. Hao was insane, though. Did he truly believe that by eliminating all the humans in the world that it would become a better place? From what he had told him, it seemed as though shamans were just the same as humans. The only difference was that shamans could see and talk to spirits like Morphine.

He was hyperaware of the warmth from Hao's hand. It was a phantom replica of the sensation that he had experienced earlier, though less overpowering compared to before, but the memory of it almost made him flinch in pain. He tried once more to pull it out of Hao's grasp, this time succeeding when Hao let go of it easily.

He seemed to be waiting for an answer.

Luckily, Lyserg was saved from answering when a chime sounded off beside him, indicating that Morphine had woken up.

"Morphine! Are you alright?"

She looked up dazedly at him, her whole frame drooping. Stretching out her wings, she rose up from where she had fallen, blinking up in confusion at him. She released a soft chime in affirmation. Shivers wracked through her frame, causing her to shake violently.

"Morphine? What's wrong?"

He turned to Hao in accusation.

"Oh? I guess she's just reacting badly to my furyoku. It's common, but I didn't think that would be the case with your spirit. No matter." Hao sighed in mock disappointment.

Seeing the harsh glare trained on him, Hao continued on to say, "She'll be fine once I'm gone."

The obvious thought that passed through Lyserg's mind at this statement was that he wanted him to be gone now.

A small smirk worked its way across Hao's visage.

As though he were a mind-reader, he said, "You want me gone now, right?"

He merely laughed at the slightly guilty look that passed across Lyserg's face.

"Alright. I'll see you later at the tournament, then. I assume that you'll be joining in as well?"

He raised an eyebrow up at the confusion that flitted through Lyserg's eyes following his inquiry.

"You have a spirit, and you can communicate with it. That means that you're a shaman. Surely you knew that."

Lyserg had suspected that earlier, but still had lingering doubts. With Hao's confirmation, he stole a glance at Morphine. He didn't even know how to use his own furyoku.

As if in answer to his doubts, that all-consuming pressure from earlier suddenly returned, enveloping him in its immensity. In instinct, he extended an arm and pointed it towards Hao, Morphine in front of it. To his shock, he noticed that both his arm and Morphine were glowing. Looking up, he saw that Hao's whole body was glowing in the same way. Behind him, a large red 'spirit' whom he assumed was Hao's, stood.

A strange device landed on the ground in front of him.

"Your weapon." Hao informed him. "Take it. Think of it as a good luck gift for the tournament. And remember what I told you earlier. I'd like to hear your answer the next time that I see you."

And with that, Hao was consumed in a maelstrom of fire. Once the fire cleared away, Hao and his spirit had vanished, the pressure fading away just as abruptly as his departure.

* * *

Tbc


End file.
